To Look Death in the Face
by Riya3
Summary: This time, Levi was there. Levi/Petra.


**To Look Death in the Face - _Levi arrives to stop Petra's execution._**

* * *

The titan's arm came towards her, red and gleaming with muscle in the evening sun. Petra Ral stared back, her chest pressed into the tree and her head tilted back if only to see the face of what would kill her. That arm came rushing back and she saw, her vision upside down, her neck bent dangerously, exposing the tendons of an ultimately fragile human body.

Her vision never faltered. She wanted to see. She wanted to die wide-eyed. When Levi-taichou came to carry her prone form away, she wanted to be remembered as the soldier who had died looking death in the face.

The treetops beyond the titan's vast form loomed even higher. She noticed a single black smear rushing across the leaves.

It would be sad to die like this. Eren would come back to fight, she knew that from the look she'd seen in his eyes. He'd come back because they'd made the wrong decision, but she didn't regret that. Sometimes, it was simply a matter of chance.

Petra felt something press into her side, something smaller. A different arm, covered in what felt comfortingly like human skin. She leaned into it unconsciously as it pulled her away with a sort of skilled desperation. The Female Titan's arm swung and crashed into the giant redwood.

* * *

A stinging pain blossomed in her cheek.

"Levi ... -heichou?" Petra opened her eyes by a fraction, looking into the blurry but familiar face in front of her. As her vision focused, her captain's pale face came into view.

She was propped back against a tree, but this time it was pressed against her back, and not her chest. There was pain in every limb, but a dull one, as if her body had decided not to respond any longer. As if it recognized her need to stay alive. Levi sat crouched in front of her, watching her with contemplating eyes. There was blood in his hair, and it wasn't evaporating. That wasn't good. He hated being dirty like that. Her cheek hurt.

He slapped her again. "Don't fall asleep," he muttered. "I can't carry you any further. You have to walk."

Her eyes widened and she managed to brace her hands against the ground and push forward. Levi-heichou's arm ...

"You arm!" She gasped. "We need to have that treated!"

His right arm had taken the blow meant for her probe body. It hung bloodied by his side. The sun had dimmed, but the red still stood out starkly from his skin.

He shrugged, wincing at the effort. "They won't amputate, and the blood has already clotted. I'll have it fixed at the military clinic in Karanes. For now, we need to get out." He looked around at the forest and its giant redwoods, looming above like titans in their own right.

Petra frowned at the arm, wondering how he could stand the pain. The sudden smell of stinging alcohol and the glint of a metal container tucked into his belt gave her the answer. Noticing her watching, he removed the canteen and held it out.

"You may below the limit, but anyone who can kill a man is old enough by my standards. Take it."

She shook her head. "No, it's fine. You need it, Levi-heichou." She was closer to death, but he was in much more pain.

"Ch. I've drank enough to stop pain for the next year or two. Take it."

She smiled slightly and took the container in her reddened fingers, sipping at the horrid-tasting liquid inside. It burned all the way down to her stomach, but it took some of the aching with it as it went. She noticed his unconsciously shaking fingers and tucked it back into his belt for him.

For a while, the forest was silent around them. Levi looked around, his eyes flitting left and right to look through each path between the foliage. He'd hadn't run blindly: he knew they were near the eastern edge of the forest. But it was unlikely they'd have the energy to make it out, since he could no longer walk straight and she couldn't stand.

The right flank had been utterly destroyed. Commander Erwin and his troops had lost the female titan, and she had probably run dressed in their own uniform. It would be impossible to find her; Armin had spread the word to keep their hoods up since the titan wouldn't risk killing anyone she knew. It would be impossible to tell her apart from their own men.

Mikasa had arrived just in time to restrain Eren, and she was probably taking on the titan by herself. He hoped beyond hope that she came out alive. Because his team was dead and Petra was all that was left and he needed that Oriental girl with the sharp eyes and sharper blade to fill the spaces that he had lost.

"What happened to ... " Petra coughed. "To Oluo and-"

"Dead," Levi reported. The words slid easily off his tongue. He couldn't stand the way she was looking at him just then. He turned away. "Can you move?"

"No," she swallowed heavily, tasting blood. "I cannot stand. I'm sorry, Levi-heichou. I don't think I can come with you."

"Well, I'm not going anywhere," he sighed. "My legs aren't letting me stand. I sprained my ankle earlier, and I'm still drunk as hell. We'll have to stay here until someone finds us."

Petra bit her lip, arm shaking as they tried to hold her up, off the tree. "No one will find us here. They headed the other way."

"They'll find us," Levi said again. "And when we get back, we'll get married too."

She shook her head slightly, not sure if she had heard him. "Pardon, Levi-heichou?"

He sighed and ran a bloodied hand through his hair, "I said we'll get married. Once we get back."

That was weird. Levi-heichou didn't do that. Why was he? ... Her arms collapsed, and her back slammed against the tree, exploding in pain. Levi's uninjured hand was quickly pulling her back up. He didn't like seeing her against the tree. It was too familiar.

She stared, "you're only saying that because you think we're going to die," she said carefully.

"No, I'm saying it because I'm drunk," he replied.

"Oh."

"And now you are too."

"I .. think so."

There was silence. It hung between them in the still evening air, and Petra noticed it with slight discomfort. Levi didn't seem to be aware of its existence.

"Why?"

"Your father will he happy," he shrugged. "Before we left, he came to tell me that you were too young for me. But he only said that in an effort to convey fatherly disapproval, I could see him giving me _that_ look."

She frowned, "he said I was too young for you?" She wasn't _that _young. And ten years didn't matter in the recon corps. Age didn't matter at all.

"Hn. Not like I care. No ceremony, though. That's a bother. And definitely no kids, I need you to remain in top shape." _Since you're the only one left._ The words went unsaid.

Petra smiled, "we have to have a cat, though. I like cats."

"Fine," he conceded. "One cat."

She knew why he was saying it, now. It wasn't because the stoic Levi-taichou was having a soft moment, no, he was still as sharp and steel. It was because the two of them survived and when she died, he wanted to mourn for someone other than his subordinate. She wanted the same.

It was too bad she was falling asleep. Her vision blurred, and Levi-taichou's startled face was right in front of her own when her eyelids dropped. He was yelling and hissing at her, slapping her to try to keep her conscious. Petra slowly brought a hand up to stop the pain, because it was hurting more than it was helping.

"Petra! Stay awake!"

She couldn't. She wondered if he would give her one of his reassuring speeches. Heichou was good at that, after all.

"You were useful!" His voice yelled, breaking slightly. "You served mankind, Petra, you ..."

Maybe it was harder for him to give _her_ this speech, instead of one of his other barely-known subordinates. She had held a dying soldier's hand many times while he said those words, but he'd never choked on them before.

The last thing she heard was the sound of hoofs clattering against the forest ground.

* * *

Her eyes killed when she tried to open them. There was light shining through and she wanted to see but ...

"She's awake."

That voice was enough to startle her out of the pain. Levi-heichou stood above her, and he only had a small scratch on his cheek. She sat up quickly enough to send her careening back down to the white hospital bed.

"Don't sit up do suddenly," he told her. "You barely escaped brain damage. Which is good, because I'd rather not be married to a crazy girl."

Petra looked around slowly, taking in the small infirmary room. Outside the window came the sound of people milling about their daily lives. Karanes. This was the hospital, and she was in a bed, and she was alive. She reached up to push her hair out of her face and noticed that they'd cleaned the blood off. It was no longer caked into the brown strands, dyeing them black.

There were two other people in the room. One was the Oriental girl that Levi had been after ever since he saw her fight. She was leaning back against the wall, wearing a simple dress with a red scarf. She was untouched, even after battling a human titan, and stood there exuding her typical cool beauty. Beside her stood a grey-haired man who she recognized as 'Jean', one of Eren's former teammates.

"Where's Eren?!" She asked. Her voice came out hoarse.

"He's injured but alive," Mikasa told her. "The female titan escaped." Her voice came out easily, as if she'd accepted the fact and was determined to move on.

"Oh" she sunk back down into the sheets. It was probably because of her. If Levi-taichou had gone to fight instead of saving her ...

His hand came to rest on her head roughly. "I know what you're thinking," he muttered. "Stop thinking it."

That was when she noticed the small mewing noise coming from the foot of the bed. She leaned over the side to peer into the eyes of a small cat, looking up at her with wide eyes.

"This one should better be sufficient," Levi grumbled. "It scratched my face. I haven't even let a titan search my face, but this stupid cat managed it. You can name it later."

She didn't know what to say, she simply say there staring at him.

"Ah, how cute," Jean said dryly. "You're in for it now, Petra-san. He'll be taking your last name, since he doesn't seem to have one."

Petra frowned, and turned back to her heichou, "you don't have to do this, I know you weren't thinking right. And you were drunk."

Jean snickered.

"I don't go back on my word, and there's a happy old man outside who I'd rather not disappoint," Levi shrugged. "Oh, and this is the our new team. You have no idea what I had to do to get that one," he pointed a crude finger at Mikasa, who seethed silently. "It involved taking advantage of my ward, since she seems so fond of him."

"I ... joined of my own accord," Mikasa said stiffly. "Eren had nothing to do with it."

"Nah, Eren convinced her after your heichou spoke to him so nicely," Jean said dryly. "She'd bring down a city for that face of his."

Petra looked around at her heichou, and at the two new members of her team, and at the brown cat scratching at the foot of the bed.

The Levi Unit would die someday, again. Mikasa and Levi were strong, they would survive. They would watch her and Jean die, maybe in their arms, maybe in the mouth of a titan. And then Levi-heichou would bite down indignant tears and look for more subordinates to fill their places.

Petra didn't care. She was prepared to look death in the face once again. Because she had almost gone and she was living on borrowed minutes and when the time came, she would die for mankind with pride.

* * *

**Petra's execution was so beautifully done but it still killed me. Levi's face when Petra's father approached him to ask about marriage killed me some more.**

**This isn't a Levi/Petra romance, by the way. There's a different reason for that proposal, as Petra's thoughts mention.**

**Review, please (^^).**


End file.
